Squarely Ripped Off: More Packaging Doppelgangers Emerge…
From the Clean Skin Coffee Company in Brisbane, Australia. Where will it end? Who will be the first to knock off the mid-90s Starbucks Coffee Passport? Sourced with thanks to everyone’s Twitter feed and the current Discovery/Fernwood brain trust…
Caffe Vita Jamaica Blue Mountain: Chump Clown Meets Stumptown
Currently for sale at Caffe Vita locations in Seattle: Jamaica Blue Mountain, $33 for a 1/2 pound, just another fine exemplar of that classic Vita roasting profile “sure to please even the most discerning palate”. Vita serving overpriced JBM…
McCafees: $100,000 For Coffee Syrup Station
A fascinating piece on business realities for McDonalds franchise owners over at the Wall Street Journal. Did you know those McCafe things cost like $100,000 to own and install? And that individual franchisees have to pay for them out…
Togo A No Go For Curtailed Coffee Cargo
Ghana News Agency, our favorite Ghanaian news agency, reports today on the shocking seizure of stolen coffee bound for the Republic of Togo: Police at Peki-Opokuase barrier in the Volta Region on Sunday intercepted a truck loaded with 72…
Classic Rock Coffee: Single Origins, Double Guitar Solos
At Classic Rock Coffee Company we take great pride in sourcing great tasting coffees. Lots of companies roast coffee beans, but we rock the roaster. Our beans are literally infused with classic rock music during the roasting process. This…
Epitaph For A Blog: The Death Of Melissa Allison’s Coffee City
The grand paucity of Mainstream Media specialty coffee coverage just got a bit more precious: Melissa Allison’s “Coffee City” blog has shut its digital doors at the Seattle Times. From Mel Al’s last post: And that’s the last bit…
Coffee Schmuck of the Week: The Biggest Jerk In Eastern Washington
From eastern side of Washington State, the South of the Northwest, we bring you this sad tale of incongruous disappointment, transient frustration, and car-bumper jumping. Ahh, the Tri-Cities… where Blue Collar America meets Frasier Crane (to give him a…
A Little Deb Will Do Ya
This just in from the Doubles Club. The NYT reports: Of the 30 swell young ladies who will be formally introduced to high society during the International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria on Dec. 29, the most swell may…
Merry Christmas From Sprudge.com
A very Merry Christmas from your Sprudge.com editors, writers, interns and research staff. The Sprudge.com office holiday party went down last night, and boy, it was a real corker…next year we’ll just predetermine the punch spiking duties. As you…
A Crafty Christmas
Here’s a bit of Christmas cheer for this trying, stressful last retail day before Christmas. It’s been going around the Facebooks, we think it’s great, and we love the Tims. In fact, we can think of no better way to survive…
Sprudge NYC: Crawl Tomorrow’s Parties
The following is an entirely true story taking place in, around and underneath Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the back patio of Roberta’s (a Borough unto itself). 10:15 AM on the Q train from Flatbush (Parkside Station) to Union Square, and all around…
Yelp, I’ve Fallen And I Can’t Shut Up! Submit Your Worldwide Yelp Disasters
Welcome to “Yelp, I’ve Fallen And I Can’t Shut Up”, a new weekly series on Sprudge.com where we’ll call on our readers to send us the best, worst, dumbest, most hilariously amazing Yelp reviews from around the world! A…
Trenchtown Stock: Jamaica Profit On Blue Mountain, Rohan Marley?
NYT elder Florence Fabricant reports on Bob Marley’s son, Rohan, currently cashing in on Jamaica Blue Mountain: Rohan Marley got into the coffee business more than 10 years ago. “A Rasta from Jamaica called offering land,” he said. Since…
Big Illy On Campus: College, Not Fair Trade For Coffee Giant
Another wrinkle in the Fair Trade / Direct Trade discussion – Illy’s University of Coffee, a training program that sidesteps Fair Trade certification while promising “above-market growing standards”. Read on: “Fair Trade certification is a system which is based…
Shotstradamus: Coffee Futures Engorged In A “Panic Stricken Demand Rationing Orgy”
Shawn Hackett, a self-described “Shotstradamus” with soothsaying predictive powers in the C futures market, dropped a doomsday scenario of coffee-price-soarin’ into our Google Alerts… Arabica coffee prices may be set for a “straight up vertical spike” to a record…
Shake Your Acid, But Watch Yourself!
We certainly wouldn’t kick you out of bed for eating crackers if you stuffed this package in our Christmas stocking… I recently purchased the Coffee Acidity Taste Kit by Coffee Chemistry to test your threshold of acids found in…








